Lol, what a couple thugs. "You say mean stuff to my brother just because he hit your guy in face. Now I must break you"

i wanna see a fight between the nurk family, the jokic family, and the porzingis family with the lovable goran dragic reffing.

I’ll call up Vince McMahon and we can get this set up for the next WRESTLEMANIA!

The WOKELYN Nets have upgraded Harden to Questionable for tonight.

Seems like he’s really going to try to give it a go.

Harden is in so kinda moot now but don't think this is remotely apples to apples. The Bucks are way better than that Hawks team (DeMarre Carroll also got injured early in the series) even if they rolled through the regular season thanks to Bud-Ball. They struggled in both the 1st and 2nd rd against the Nets and Wizards. It was just a regular season team. Their best player was Millsap or Horford.

Cavs got up 2-1 in the finals against GS with that team (Kyrie did play a lot gm 1) but they were able to pivot to a defense+shooters team that had a solid high floor identity. They also beat the Bulls the previous rd with Kyrie banged up.

You're probably just trying to make the point that the Nets are live (the betting markets had them around 37-38% for series before Harden ruled back in although that prices in some probability of guys getting back in the series) so obviously they had a solid chance but even with Kyrie's injury Cleveland was like -200 vs the Hawks before Carroll's injury. After he died, Hawks were pretty much dust.

End of the day, Bron >>>> Horford or Millsap whereas KD is probably better than Giannis (same ballpark at worst, whatever)

So basically you want Nash to tell Durant:

"Just be like LeBron please".

https://www.reddit.com/r/Mavericks/c...zt38c/um_guys/

Interesting read on Reddit about a possible conspiracy theory about Hbob and the Mavs' front office. Basically, they think Hbob or someone close to him made a hit piece video on Donnie Nelson and posted it to Reddit because he knew that the article on the Athletic was about to come out (which basically seems like a hit piece on Hbob by Donnie Nelson).

I hate manuevering through Reddit, but it's somewhat interestging.

I like Phoenix here to win the chip from here on out.

I bet it's gonna be ugly. Watching AD limp around really sucked.

I think they are the overwhelming favorites at this point. Aside from the fact that they are the only team in the CF's while the other series are still very much in doubt, they also:

1) are the most healthy
2) will be the most rested
3) had the best record against elite teams

They have lineup flexibility in that they can go small or big, and don't have a diva at any position that they might have to decommission for matchup purposes.

I think that's the same same criticism we've been seeing against this year's Bucks. That this is the Bud regular season special, their best player is easy to guard against in the playoffs. They haven't done anything over the past couple of years to prove otherwise. After Game 1-3, weren't most people writing off the Bucks for exactly this reason?

Yeah this is what I mean and I also don't understand the comparison to Lebron vs Warriors in 2015. That was a historically lopsided series in terms of overall talent, not just because it was Lebron + scrubs on one side, but because the Warriors were a dynasty-caliber team. The only reason why people thought the Cavs had a chance was because of Lebron and people were pricing in the possibility that the Warriors weren't maybe quite as good as they'd been (which they largely disproved the following season). This year's Bucks are far closer to the Hawks in 2015 than to the Warriors in 2015. They are a top-heavy team whose 2nd/3rd best players aren't even clearly all-star caliber.

Wasn't DeMarre Carroll in 2015 roughly as good as Donte DiVincenzo, who's out for the series? Carroll also did play all 4 games, though I'm sure he wasn't 100%.

Playoffs aren't just about having the best player - Jokic >>>> Anyone on the Suns for instance but the Nuggets still got swept. And if you look at the BPM of top 4 players in minutes, they are comparable:

2015 Hawks

Korver: 2.8
Millsap: 3.4
Horford: 4.1
Teague: 2.9

Combined: 13.3

2021 Bucks

Middleton: 1.3
Giannis: 8.8
Jrue: 3.5
Lopez: 0.0

Combined: 13.6

CP3's exceptional career and Booker's scoring arsenal have confused a lot of people into thinking that the Suns have top-tier players, but neither is a clear top-15 player and I think Millsap and Horford in 2015 were probably roughly as good relative to the league as CP3 and Booker have been this season.

Edit:

Btw, I'm not saying the 2015 Hawks are as good as the 2015 Suns. But to the extent that Bud teams struggle in the playoffs, it appears to be largely because they outperform their natural talent level in the regular season and Bud doesn't coach very well in the playoffs (at least compared to the regular season. It's not because their best player isn't as good as the other team's best player - Giannis was also better than anyone on last year's Heat. And the Bud factor is something that applies to both the 2015 Hawks and the 2021 Bucks.

I wonder who the super team will be in 5 years? Trae/Giannis/D Mitch

RJ Barrett/Zion/Luka

4) They have the most basketball IQ right now in the remaining teams + a scorer that can detonate for 15+ points in a quarter with Booker.

Clippers might have the slight edge in talent, but I trust CP3 to manage a 7 game series more than anyone on the Clippers. Rondo could inject some of that but he's been having 3 straight DNPs in this Utah series.

I think at this point, most neutrals are rooting for the Suns to win, just so that the Suns-in-4 dude becomes even more of a legend.

CHET/anyone/anyone

Height 7′ 0″, Weight 190 lbs

Uhhhhhh he's gonna have to add 40+ lbs before he can be a part of ANY SuperTeam.

I find myself rooting for Giannis oddly.

His free throw and 3 point shooting form is so ugly I want him to win a championship for the luls.

If you wanna just sort by BPM/PD/SRS then sure you can get that answer I guess. But like I said, the Hawks were considered a regular season team that ended up struggling in rd 1 and rd 2. Wall actually broke his wrist in gm 2 of that 2nd rd, I remember thinking he stays healthy and the Wiz win that series but we'll never know.

Again, the Nets (pre-harden news) were +4.5 at home tonight, they were being given something like 38% chance to win this series (and this is with Harden/Irving returning possibilities) The Cavs were a 65%ish/-200 fav to win their series and that is without HCA.

Also, who says the Bucks have done nothing? They almost made the finals a few years ago and that was with playoff useless Bledsoe instead of Jrue. That is a big gap in previous accomplishment than beating the Wizards with John Wall having a broken wrist.

It just isn't the same thing, the massive gap in the odds of the two examples you cited shows that. They're not even in the same ballpark for level of difficulty. If you wanna go even further, the Nets WITH their big 3 AND HCA were about the same level of fav vs the Bucks as the Cavs were vs the Hawks and Love out/Kyrie banged up going into series. That is a massive gap.

I would say it is closer to LeBron/GS where he gave them a fight. I don't think GS 2015 was a historically great team, I think Klay/Dray had not reached their peaks yet and they had no playoff experience. Luckily for them, KD died, LAC/SA ate each other then Hou upset LAC and Kyrie/Love were dead in the finals so they had the easiest road to a title possibly of all time. That is more my opinion I guess but even odds reflect that as well. Unless you think they were massively underrating how good GS was, but I really don't.

Again, all of this is pretty moot unless Harden reinjures himself fast.

Yeah, reading this post again you say people are underestimating variance then citing the 2015 Cavs.

The Cavs didn't need variance to beat the Hawks, lol. They needed LeBron to show up to the arena and play, and he did. So they won. Wasn't a little engine that could spot.

almost seems like the Nets/Nash are playing games with Harden's injury going from out to doubtful to questionable in like 24 hours - maybe trying to give Bucks something else to plan for

I think you're ignoring the context here - I was responding to the post that suggested that the Nets have to make drastic changes and only then would they have a *chance* to win. I was just saying that a little bit of shooting variance is all they need. Then, separately, I was saying that Lebron vs the Warriors in 2015 is the wrong comparison here in terms of the level of desperation. The Cavs weren't just without their 2nd and 3rd best players, but they were already down 1-0 in a series. It's extremely unlikely that you could win 4 out of 6 against the Warriors with just some positive variance. Winning 2 out of 3 against this Bucks team is completely doable with a bit of variance.

I don't think this works out for Harden and the Nets

Fair enough, didn't see that post it was previous page.....Obviously winning 2/3 at home is easier than a full series as the undermanned team. I just meant in terms of caliber of matchup that is closer to me than the Hawks/Cavs 1.

Given they were +4.5 at home tonight though, probably +7 in Mil and say +2 or 3 gm 7 (they would likely get a bump from winning 5 or 6), they would've been pretty decent dogs in the series if both were ruled out for every gm.

No clue what to think, line moved from LAL -1 to -3 when AD was ruled in and the dude legit couldn't run up and down the court if his life depended on it so who knows...

Unless he is AD, hard to see it not being a massive upgrade. Before that move, I would've probably ticketed Mike James for their most projected pts tonight.